The sound of dripping water woke him.

Hatake Kakashi felt as if he had slept for ages. His eyelids were heavy and his eyes were blinded by tons of sleepers. At first, he had the impression that it was a traditional morning in his apartment, where the singing of birds outside the window always accompanied him in the effort of getting out of bed. This time, he also thought that the sound wasn't dripping water, but an unusual chirp. But when realities and consciousness finally burst into Copy Ninja's mind, he realized he was wrong, and his situation after opening his eyes frightened him even more.

Already as a teenager, he had anxiety states and was rarely brought to the extreme, which usually turned out to be a no-win situation, mainly during missions. Back then, he usually worried that someone on his team wouldn't survive. Most of these fears were behind him, but those about the loss of loved ones were real and impossible to forget.

And so, it was this time, if not even worse. What he saw made him feel a whole new kind of dread. Much deeper and more concentrated inside him, which appeared like pain and refused to disappear, covering his entire body with its shadow, trapping his heart at the centre of its destructive force, pounding loudly as if it was about to stop.

Well, Sakura appeared before Kakashi's eyes.

Or rather, what was left of her...

~ * ~

A few days earlier

Sakura stubbornly pressed her hands to Kakashi's wound, despite the weapon stuck in her arm.

"Did you hear what I said?" the man hissed.

"I'm not going anywhere until I heal him," she replied calmly.

"You have about five hours before he dies," her tormentor announced coldly, plunging the kunai deeper into her arm.

Haruno froze. Her healing chakra fused more cells, fusing the tissue together. Another layer of torn organs was bonded together. Despite the distraction of the man's words, she continued to repair Kakashi's body, to whom not only herself owed so much.

"Katana was poisoned. He has five hours left. If you don't come with us, you won't get the antidote, and if you try to bring him to Konoha, you'll lose four hours of precious time and have only one hour left to detect the effects of the poison and create an antidote."

Sakura swallowed loudly, staring at Kakashi's unconscious face.

She had to make the most important decision in her life.

The seconds seemed to last forever as she analysed her situation, knowing that by agreeing to the man's suggestion, she would most likely be dead. However, it was all about Kakashi. As a medical ninja, she couldn't let him go. And as a woman in love with him, she couldn't lose him...

She frowned, looking up at her companions fighting with the enemy.

She made her decision.

"Let's go."

~ * ~

"Sakura?"

Her name barely crossed his throat as two hostile ninjas pushed the wounded woman into the tiny room that Hatake had been. He looked distractedly at the men who were giving him mean smiles.

"Tough cookie of her," one of them muttered, carefully watching Copy Ninja's reaction to his words.

"She won't say a word when we inflict her bodily wounds, even genjutsu doesn't work on her," the other added, turning to leave.

"We have to find something stronger on her, or someone."

They both laughed evilly before slamming the door of the dungeon.

Hatake shuddered at the sound, because then the whole room was shrouded in shadows, preventing him from seeing the silhouette of the young kunoichi lying on the floor.

Unfortunately, he still felt the effects of that attack, although Sakura certainly healed him, otherwise he wouldn't regain consciousness. However, he had insufficient amounts of chakra and was also slightly dizzy. Although the latter was probably the result of lying down for too long.

Still not in full strength, Kakashi rose from a pallet that was practically consisting of straw and a rough blanket.

He reached her exhausted body, drawing her onto his lap.

"Sakura...?"

He brushed the stray strands away from her beautiful face.

"Sakura-chan..."

She was barely breathing and her pulse slowed down terribly.

He pressed a hand to her cheek, hoping for a miracle.

~ * ~

"I have to heal the wound before we get there. Losing the blood might be a problem for me when I'll be getting rid of the poison from his body," Sakura announced, carrying Kakashi on her back.

At the first moment she had thrown her former teacher over her shoulder, the men around her moved back a little, as if fearing that she might do something to them. Because she could, but not when Kakashi's life was at stake.

"When we get there, we'll let you heal him and give you an antidote, and for now..."

Sakura scowled at the enemy ninja who was walking near her as the last of the brave ones, but seeing the flaming anger in the green eyes, he took a step back, thereby increasing the distance between them.

"I have to heal him, because as long as his blood continues to diminish, he will be too weak to be detoxified," the kunoichi said through clenched teeth.

She paused, carefully laying Kakashi's body on the ground. Her torturers also stopped.

"How long will it take you?" she was asked.

Haruno just snorted.

"I would have had it done a long time ago if you would let me finish my work on the battlefield," she muttered, putting her hands covered with a greenish healing light to the back of the wounded sensei.

Several men snorted.

"And let your comrades come to your aid?" one mocked, the one farthest from her.

The furious kunoichi gritted her teeth but didn't try to find the one who said it, as she had a more important task at the moment. She had to glue Copy Ninja's perfect body back to the state it was before the nasty katana attack.

"If you spoke about the poison, I would come voluntarily with you," she replied.

"Right," another snorted, but his voice seemed to be heard closer than the previous one.

Sakura turned a deaf ear for the next allusions on the part of her torturers, focusing on fusing the next tissues together. It was like playing jigsaw puzzles with her mother when she was a child. The living body was one big puzzle, consisting of many complex pieces that had to be put in the right place; and sometimes set the right rhythm, as when she was beating Naruto's heart during the war, pumping blood into the veins and brain, thus still and still keeping him alive. Kakashi's heart was still beating, hard and clear. Moreover, he was breathing steadily, as if he were asleep. And she was at the very end of her job.

She shifted one of her hands to the previous merge, which, due to the sudden movement of throwing a man taller than she was over her shoulder, broke. She repaired them again, but the next time she finished her work, she would have to be even gentler with him.

Sakura was slowly rebuilding the muscles, braiding them together, just like she had braided Ino's hair before. She tensed each one in turn to see if they would break too quickly, then tightened the link, tightened it, then loosened it so that Hatake wouldn't feel any contraction. At the very end, she had to rebuild the outer layers of his skin, which she had to sit over for longer, so that she could heal him to perfection, so that there would be no scar, and if so, a small one.

"How much longer?" the torturers complained impatiently, to which Haruno decided to react this time.

She smiled predatory before lifting her leg, then lowering it and hitting the ground, the crevice of which leapt towards the most arrogant beets and threw them into the air. However, she was putting her sensei together all the time.

"It's almost over, I just need to put the skin together," she said.

"All right," muttered the man closest to her.

The bleeding had stopped some time ago, and right now her biggest concern was fusing the skin.

Sweat beaded her brow, but she didn't care too much. She blew off a few of the intrusive strands that fell over her face, and the ones that stuck to her forehead were simply ignored. Maximum focus on her task. After all, she fought for him.

At this point, Kakashi choked.

"Sakura..." he groaned, and she pursed her lips into a narrow line when she realized that he must have really suffered, especially since the poison was still coursing through his veins.

"I'm here," she replied after a long moment.

"You know... Kushina was right..."

Haruno frowned. She had no idea what poison he had been given, but she was pretty sure it was because of it that Kakashi had started to delirium.

"In what?" She decided to continue as long as she kept talking to him, there was a chance he wouldn't lose consciousness and would cheer her up for the next hours of the journey. And no matter how ridiculous nonsense he started to talk, anything was better than the silence that followed when he passed out.

"Even in Icha Icha Baiorensu it was mentioned... no wonder, since Jiraiya idolized Tsunade." That deep tone of his voice, though a little exhausted and slightly dimmed by the pain, brought tears to her eyes. She loved listening to his voice.

"You know, Kaka-sensei, everyone knows about it. And as a student of hers, I know it best, because she always complained to me how much she hated this old pervert."

Kakashi laughed as she moved her hands a little higher, halfway through her work.

"Or maybe it wasn't about Tsunade that he wrote... she could have been his inspiration, but Kushina wasn't a meek woman either," he said after reflection, and with his eyes closed and this thinker's look he looked as if he was completely healthy and had no poison in him.

"Uzumaki Kushina? Naruto's mom?"

"Yes. Minato-sensei once even said you looked a bit like her," he laughed.

He shivered with laughter, and this reflex made Sakura relax a little.

"Is it good or bad?"

Hatake thought at that moment or flew away again, and she couldn't be sure because she was under time pressure, fusing the cells of the last tissue together.

"Depends on how you look at it," Kakashi said. "But to this day I remember her words and I dare to say that she was absolutely right."

"In what?" One of their torturers asked.

Hatake didn't react, so it was Sakura who repeated this question, and then a smile appeared on her sensei's lips, even visible from under his mask.

"That only these fierce and slightly aggressive women are the most valuable."

Haruno couldn't help but blush on her cheeks. She was shocked herself.

"The funny thing is that she said it while struggling in Minato-sensei's arms and she was in a sheer fury," he added in a light tone, which surprised their unpleasant companions a bit. "And then she added that you need the right man who could cool your temper..."

After these words, Kakashi passed out again.

And she finally finished her job. Her sensei's back looked intact.

Haruno looked up at the man who was nearby and nodded her head.

It's time to hit the road.